Cold Water Pitting of Copper Tube

Cold water pitting of copper tube occurs in only a minority of installations. Copper water tubes are usually guaranteed by the manufacturer against manufacturing defects for a period of 50 years. The vast majority of copper systems far exceed this time period but a small minority may fail after a comparatively short time.

The majority of failures seen are the result of poor installation or operation of the water system. The most common failure seen in the last 20 years is pitting corrosion in cold water tubes, also known as Type 1 pitting. These failures are usually the result of poor commissioning practice although a significant number are initiated by flux left in the bore after assembly of soldered joints. Prior to about 1970 the most common cause of Type 1 pitting was carbon films left in the bore by the manufacturing process.

Research and manufacturing improvements in the 1960s virtually eliminated carbon as a cause of pitting with the introduction of a clause in the 1971 edition of BS 2871 requiring tube bores to be free of deleterious films. Despite this, carbon is still regularly blamed for tube failures without proper investigation.

Read more about Cold Water Pitting Of Copper Tube:  Copper Water Tubes, Pitting, Water, Initiation, Recommendations

Famous quotes containing the words cold, water, copper and/or tube:

    O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,
    The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won,
    The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
    While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;
    But O heart! heart! heart!
    O the bleeding drops of red,
    Where on the deck my Captain lies,
    Fallen cold and dead.
    Walt Whitman (1819–1892)

    It is with artworks as it is with wine: it is much better when we do not need either one, when we stick with water, and when out of our own inner fire, the inner sweetness of our own soul, we turn the water over and over again into wine ourselves.
    Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)

    He had put, within his reach,
    A box of counters and a red-veined stone,
    A piece of glass abraded by the beach,
    And six or seven shells,
    A bottle with bluebells,
    And two French copper coins, ranged there with careful art,
    Coventry Kersey Dighton Patmore (1823–1896)

    Even crushed against his brother in the Tube the average Englishman pretends desperately that he is alone.
    Germaine Greer (b. 1939)